Recent Decisions
I summarize recent California employment-law decisions here—brief, plain-English notes on what changed and what it means for resolving a dispute.
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Senate Bill 464 requires employers to store pay-data demographic information apart from personnel records and, beginning in 2027, expands the pay data report to 23 job categories. It also makes civil penalties mandatory when the Civil Rights Department requests them.
Senate Bill 261 lets courts impose a civil penalty of up to three times an unpaid wage judgment that stays unsatisfied for 180 days, and requires fee and cost awards to prevailing plaintiffs enforcing such judgments.
Senate Bill 294 requires California employers to give employees an annual written notice of workplace and constitutional rights, offer an emergency-contact option, and notify that contact if an employee is arrested or detained at work.
Senate Bill 809 creates the Construction Trucking Employer Amnesty Program and confirms that owning a vehicle does not, by itself, make a worker an independent contractor. The new law also addresses reimbursement for drivers who supply their own trucks.
Senate Bill 513 clarifies that the personnel records employees may inspect include education and training records, and it sets the details those records must contain.
Senate Bill 642 redefines “pay scale” as a good-faith estimate and lengthens the limitations period for California equal pay claims to three years, with recovery reaching back up to six years.
Senate Bill 477 refines how the Civil Rights Department handles complaints under the Fair Employment and Housing Act, adding tolling rules, defining “group or class complaint,” and changing when a right-to-sue notice issues.
Assembly Bill 406, an urgency statute, revives the former Labor Code leave and anti-retaliation provisions for crime and abuse victims, applying them only to conduct occurring on or before December 31, 2024.
Senate Bill 617 expands California’s WARN Act notice by requiring employers to state how they will coordinate reemployment services and to include CalFresh food assistance information.
Senate Bill 303 adds Government Code section 12940.2, providing that an employee’s good-faith acknowledgment of personal bias during a bias mitigation training does not, by itself, constitute unlawful discrimination.